Freedom of Information Act Office

IC Directors' Meeting Highlights

May 29, 2012

To:

IC Directors

Subject:

IC Directors' Meeting
Highlights — April 5, 2012

Announcements: Dr. Collins provided brief summaries of the House and Senate Hearings for NIH, noting that the House Hearing focused on the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), while the Senate Hearing was more broadly focused on NIH research. He also provided updates on the recent National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity meeting to review revised manuscripts on the transmissibility of A/H5N1 influenza virus.

CTSAs: Tom Insel and Josie Briggs

Dr. Insel, Acting Director of NCATS, briefly introduced the NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) program. He noted that the CTSAs are 80% of the NCATS budget.

Dr. Briggs, NCATS Acting Director of the Division of Clinical Innovation, provided an overview of the origins of the CTSAs program, noting the original primary mission to create an academic home for clinical and translational sciences. She described an effort, CTSA 2.0, to establish the CTSAs Consortium as a world class environment for high quality, multi-site clinical and translational science, and highlighted several efforts, including REDCap, ResearchMatch.org, and NeuroNEXT. Dr. Briggs noted the next round of institutional awards for the CTSAs program will be issued in June.

OSTP Update: John Holdren

Dr. Holdren provided an overview of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). He described the many roles and responsibilities of OSTP, highlighting its mission to provide the President with advice on science and technology issues, ensure the Executive Branch policies are informed by science, and coordinate the science and technology work of the Executive Branch agencies. This mission includes multi-agency initiative coordination on efforts such as the recent National Big Data Initiative and joint budget preparation responsibilities with OMB for the science and technology agencies among others. Additionally, OSTP houses the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and the Presidentís Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Dr. Holdren noted multiple upcoming PCAST reports of interest to the biomedical research community and his desire to work more closely with NIH in the future.